iAm: Louisa Koh

A 30-something from sunny Singapore who's tried her hand at lots of things, such as selling skin care & make-up, working in a (boring) corporate setting, trying to carve a singing career, giving private tuition, being a fitness instructor, writing/editing etc...

Besides exasperating her parents to no end, she loves experimenting with new make-up looks, uncovering the best make-up & skin care products, modelling for herself before the camera, singing at the top of her lungs (with preferably no one to hear it), and writing whatever, whenever (as you can already tell).

Review: SHILLS EX Peptide Lifting Eye Mask

I’m probably the best candidate for an eye mask review, ‘cos to be honest, my eyes are in serious need of rescuing! Ever since my chronic allergic conjunctivitis started 13 years ago, my poor eyes have been subject to sheer torture in the name of cruel rubbing, tugging, pulling; you name it, I’ve done it.

So it’s no surprise that some of my biggest beauty woes come in the form of dark eye circles, crow’s feet and fine lines around the eye area. Not to mention loss of skin elasticity in time to come… *shock shock horror horror*

If you look carefully at the ingredient list, this eye mask contains Argireline®, Leuphasyl® and Eyeliss™, besides Dipotassium Glycyrrhizinate or Licorice root extract for skin lightening, Sodium Hyaluronate for hydration, and essential oil. What, you ask?

Some background info

Argireline® (click link to read more), by Lipotec, is a peptide specifically designed to fight against expression wrinkles. It has been shown in significant testing to be effective against the development of skin wrinkling, being a topical alternative to Botulinum Toxin A.

Leuphasyl® (click link to read more), also by Lipotec, is a new peptide that reduces expression wrinkles caused by the contraction of muscles of facial expression, especially in the forehead and around the eyes.

In vivo tests have shown that when a cream containing 5% Argireline® solution + 5% Leuphasyl® was applied twice daily around the eyes of 15 volunteers, aged 39 to 63, for 28 days, a decrease of 24.62% was accomplished, with maximum values up to –46.53%.

Apparently, both peptides show additive effects due to their complementary mechanisms. Read more about the research and tests here

Eyeliss™, from Sederma, on the other hand, helps reduce bags and puffiness under the eyes, as well as smooth the appearance of fine lines by firming and toning the skin around the eye area.

Now, The Review

What’s a review without peektures right? I assure you, there’ll be plenty in this post.

Make sure you’re getting the authentic SHILLS product, with the hologram sticker on one of the sheets:

Open sesame!

As you can see from the photo above, there’s so much essence left that you can transfer it to a Ziploc, and reuse it with plain eye mask pieces… great value for money indeed! 😉

Of course, the best way to enjoy an eye mask is in bed, relaxing:

As you can see, I use this mask 2 ways: on my eyelid as well as my undereyes. I would first place them either on my eyelids or undereyes for 15 minutes, then switch over. This way, my whole eye area gets to benefit 😛

I like how the mask feels on my eyes. I’ve used other eye masks before, that either smell weird or feel weird. But with this mask, it’s nothing like that at all. It smells rather refreshing to me, feels soothing enough and doesn’t sting my eyes in any way, even when the essence gets into them.

The Results

I’ll be showing you four sets of Before & After photos.
The first 3 were taken within 10 days, and the last one about a month after. You can use this eye mask 2–3 times a week, or as needed.

Set 1 (Left: Before, Right: After):

Set 2 (Top: Before, Bottom: After):

Set 3 (Left: Before, Right: After):

Set 4 (Top: Before, Bottom: After):

The last set, in particular, has a very stunning contrast in the Before & After photos.

You can see a very obvious lightening of my dark eyelids and undereye circles. The skin around my eyes looks more moisturized and brightened.

Unfortunately, I can’t speak for how long the results last or whether you get a cumulative effect over time, due to my chronic eye allergy, which causes me to rub my eyes every so often. Hence, depending on many factors that determine how my eyes are doing allergy-wise, I can’t speak for the long-term efficacy of this product. 🙁

However, this definitely works wonders if you need a quick pick-me-up for an important event or just to give your eyes a much-needed boost every week!